An enhanced rate of stellar tidal disruption events ( TDEs ) may be an important characteristic of supermassive black hole ( SMBH ) binaries at close separations .
Here we study the evolution of the distribution of stars around a SMBH binary due to the eccentric Kozai-Lidov ( EKL ) mechanism , including octupole effects and apsidal precession caused by the stellar mass distribution and general relativity .
We identify a region around one of the SMBHs in the binary where the EKL mechanism drives stars to high eccentricities , which ultimately causes the stars to either scatter off the second SMBH or get disrupted .
For SMBH masses 10 ^ { 7 } M _ { \odot } and 10 ^ { 8 } M _ { \odot } , the TDE rate can reach \sim 10 ^ { -2 } / yr and deplete a region of the stellar cusp around the secondary SMBH in \sim 0.5 Myr .
As a result , the final geometry of the stellar distribution between 0.01 and 0.1 pc around the secondary SMBH is a torus .
These effects may be even more prominent in nuclear stellar clusters hosting a supermassive and an intermediate mass black hole .